Skins

Part Seventeen.

Siddhanth stood poker-straight outside the Lady of Lourdes. He'd never been inside. The church served to remind him of the pain and re-inflict it. The split between himself gaped in obviousness, a chasm of white nothing. Not peppered in Indian lilac. Not dancing. Still. Quiet.

He knocked on the heavy wooden door. A man answered. He smiled at him. Siddhanth said nothing. He knew where to go. He'd heard the stories of Confession. The man watched in curious confusion as he walked silently to a folding, half-sized door built into a wall, crouched and entered. It shut with a grated rattle. Oiled wood walls were lit with a single, struggling flame. His confessor's silhouette flickered on the mesh. A grave voice greeted him.

'Tell me your sins.'

Siddhanth panicked. His own history froze and looked him in the face. Was that his sin? No. It was worse than that. Much worse. It lay in smooth flesh. In a wounded, greeneyed doe. It tumbled out of him with the sorrow of a motherless child. Wandering.

'I made love to a missionary.'

The man's shadow seemed to swell in the tiny room. He spoke, quiveringly calm. Siddhanth saw him adjust his spectacles. He gave him a book-perfect reply.

'You will pray one thousand Ave Marias for absolution of your own sin. Pray for the woman you defiled. Pray. Good day to you.'

Siddhanth was furious. This wasn't what he'd wanted. He came for the sweet discipline. The patronising. He crinkled his nose, grabbed his hair and kicked the wooden wall. The candle died.

The silhouette jumped and disappeared, swallowed in blackness.